SIHH 2017 Day 1 RECAP

It is one of the accepted ironies of life that nothing at watch shows happens on time. Our first appointment of SiHH 2017 is no exception.

The hushed and venerated tone of the Vacheron Constantin booth is a welcome tonic for the Watch Anish team who are a little shell shocked by the early hour and the frigid alpine air. The soothing atmosphere at Vacheron is clearly born of a very long history of doing things very well. We feel revived. We love the smell of enameling in the morning…Smells like victory!

The Vacheron collection that caches our eye this morning is the Métiers d’Art Copernicus celestial spheres 2460 RT collection. The three pieces feature beautifully depicted star signs. One of the aesthetic features common to each piece is a classically anthropomorphised sun, engraved in gold that sits in the centre of each piece like the sigil of Louis XIIII. They all also have stylised symbols representing the star signs on the bezel. It is pretty whimsical stuff, and could be a hard look to pull off if one isn’t pretty self assured, but who doesn’t want a watch that can tell your horoscope?

Sagittarius: You will be late for your next brand appointment, and be weary of leaving your press pass unattended!

Richard Mille

The McLaren F1 car dangling from the ceiling gives the Richard Mille booth the appearance of a playroom for a gargantuan five-year-old boy. A healthy dose of that childlike enthusiasm permeates through to the RM McLaren collaboration. At 40 grams including strap it is the lightest split second chronograph ever. It is the first piece to directly benefit from the brand collaboration, and utilizes a material designed for McLaren at Manchester University but two Nobel Prize winning scientists. On a side note, the booth attendants are dressed like characters from the Bruce Willis sci-fi film, Fifth Element.

Roger Dubuis

Next stop is the 80’s vision of the future that Roger Dubuis have opted for this year. It’s fantastic with stark white walls crisscrossed by asymmetrical bolts of neon lights. Barely through the door a friendly but vehement lady corals us into seats and straps us into VR headsets. We are now plunged into a cosmos like interpretation of their latest piece, the “Dare to be Rare” Excalibur Spider. A collaborative piece with Pirelli celebrating different, performance based materials, featuring star patterned skeleton movement with electric blue detailing.

The simulation is so oddly immersive that as we veer through the movement of the watch we find ourselves ducking virtual flying tourbillions like they’re Tie fighters protecting the Death Star.

Apart from a couple of quality German beers with our generous hosts from Lange and Sohne, that’s pretty much been what we got up to on day one of SIHH 2017.